Herbs for Cooking

June 1st, 2006

   You could go to the grocery store and pay $2 or more every time you need a few snips of fresh basil or oregano.

   Or you could grow enough fresh herbs to flavor a whole banquet right in your own little backyard plot for virtually nothing.

   One of the nice things about some of our most common cooking herbs is that they’re among the easiest plants to grow.

   Most also are perennial plants, which means they come back each spring. A typical herb in a 4-inch pot costs about the same as a single bag of cut herbs at the grocery store, but it can keep giving year after year.

   The best attribute, though, is taste, says Nancy Reppert, a culinary artist and owner of the Sweet Remembrances tea room in Mechanicsburg.

   “You can’t get anything fresher than when you’re cutting it from your own garden,” Reppert says. “The flavor is more intense, too. During the winter, I’ll buy herbs in the grocery store, but they don’t have the same flavor and intensity as home-grown.”

   Growing your own also gives you control over what goes on – or doesn’t go on – the plants.

   “If you’re growing it yourself, you know the plant’s history,” says Reppert. “You know what you’ve done with it. And you know it’s fresh.”

   Reppert harvests most of the cooking herbs she needs from a small, 3-by-6-foot raised-bed garden that’s growing on the patio next to her tea room. That’s enough space to grow nearly a dozen different varieties.

   “Most of the time you only need one plant of each,” she says. “You can keep harvesting from them all summer.  Using them will actually encourage them to grow.”

   Cooking herbs aren’t terribly demanding. Give them reasonably good soil and a lot of sun, and they produce without babying. Most need little, if any, fertilizing or bug or disease controls, and most also are drought-tough.

   Bunnies are the biggest threat. They’re especially fond of parsley and sometimes basil, but even they usually don’t bother the more aromatic herbs such as rosemary, oregano and chives.

   Now’s a good time to get an herb garden going if you don’t have one. If you’re not up for digging a new bed, consider poking a few of your favorites among the flower beds, shrub borders or even foundation plantings.

   I asked Reppert and her sister, herbalist Susanna Reppert-Brill, owner of the adjoining Rosemary House herb shop, for their 10 favorite cooking herbs. Here’s their list:

Closeup of rosemary foliage.

   1.) Rosemary. Rosemary both looks and smells like a mini-evergreen with its piney scent and flat, needle-like leaves. It grows upright about 18 inches tall. It’s usually not winter-hardy, but some gardeners keep it going by potting it up on a sunny windowsill over winter. (Misting regularly inside helps.)

   Reppert likes rosemary best with chicken and lamb but finds it’s one of the most versatile culinary herbs – even working well in lemonade and cookies. “It’s got an intense flavor, so you don’t need much,” she says.

   2.) Basil. Reppert-Brill likes both the sweet and cinnamon types. All parts are edible, but most gardeners pluck off the blossoms to encourage more leafy growth, which is the main interest.

   “Basil goes hand-in-hand with tomatoes,” says Reppert. “It’s excellent for use in pesto, which is a great way to preserve it through the winter.”

   Basil is a tender annual that should be planted in mid-May or after. It’ll die off in fall frost.

   3.) Thyme. This is a low-growing, spreading perennial with small leaves. Reppert likes it best for flavoring chicken but says it also makes a superb cracker spread with cream cheese, sour cream and garlic salt.

   In the garden, it makes a great edging plant that’s tough enough to use on rocky banks or between stepping stones. Reppert-Brill says the golden and lemon types are especially attractive.

   4.) Burnet. This feathery-leafed perennial is one of the earliest to come up in the garden and has a mild cucumber flavor. Young leaves are best.

   “This is unique, fun and pretty,” says Reppert-Brill. “You have to grow it because you won’t find it dried anywhere.”

   “I like to use it more as a garnish,” adds Reppert. “But it’s also excellent for use in soups.”

   5.) Oregano. Similar in habit to thyme, oregano is another tough, perennial spreader that’s as useful as a garden edger as it is in the kitchen.

   The common Italian type is the traditional pizza-sauce flavoring, but Reppert-Brill also likes the cultivar ‘Hot ‘n Spicy’ for its extra kick. Both kinds work well in chicken dishes as well as any tomato-sauce dish.

   Golden oregano looks especially snappy in a rock garden or perennial border.

Chives in bloom.

   6.) Chives and garlic chives. Both are upright, spiky-leafed perennials with a mild onion flavor. Chives have rounded leaves and pinkish-purple flower clusters, while garlic chives have flat blades and white flower clusters.

   “I love the delicate flavors, plus they’re up early in spring and one of the last to go down in fall,” says Reppert-Brill.

   “They’re easy to preserve by freezing in a plastic bag over winter,” Reppert says.

   7.) Tarragon. Reppert-Brill says to be sure to go with true French tarragon, which has the best flavor and doesn’t seed as rampantly as other types.

   French tarragon typically overwinters and has a mild licorice flavor. It’s used mainly in chicken dishes.

   8.) Parsley. This frilly-leafed perennial is one of the most nutritious herbs and also adds textural interest to any garden.

   Reppert says the more flat-leafed Italian parsley has the best flavor, but the curly-leafed type looks better for garnishing. “You can put parsley in just about everything,” she says. “It’s so versatile.”

   9.) Peppermint. Peppermint is another durable perennial herb with an arching habit. The main thing to know is that it (and most mints) can become invasive by sending out runners that easily root all over the garden. Solve that by growing mint in a barrel or confining its roots with a buried pot or chimney flue.

   “Mints have such a clean, crisp flavor,” says Reppert. “They’re excellent as a garnish or in tea or mint cookies. I like to crystallize mint leaves with sugar and powdered egg whites as an after-dinner mint.”

   10.) Edible flowers. They might not technically qualify as herbs, but Reppert says a few flowers can’t be beat for livening up any dish.

   Three of her favorite edible-petaled flowers are pansies, violets and tulips. Snip them fresh and rinse right before using in salads or as main-dish garnishes.

    Note:  Keep in mind that fresh herbs aren’t as concentrated in flavor as dried herbs sold in shaker bottles.

   In recipes that call for dried herbs, use about three times as much fresh herbs for equivalent flavoring.

    Bonus: Nancy Reppert and Susanna Reppert-Brill couldn’t stop at just 10 good cooking herbs. Here are a dozen more they suggest for central-Pennsylvania gardens:

   Borage

   Cilantro (Coriander)

   Dill

   Fennel

   Garlic

   Lavender

   Lemon balm

   Lemon verbena

   Lovage

   Sage

   Savory

   Scented geraniums